Sen. Obama took a few days off of campaigning so he could visit his grandmother, Madelyn Lee Payne Dunham, in Hawaii. There is concern that Ms. Dunham will not live to see the elections, and this may well be the last time Sen. Obama gets to see his grandmother, the woman who helped raise him.

In a disgusting act of desperation, the GOP strategist Brad Blakeman tried to turn attention away from Gov. Palin’s $150,000 new wardrobe and insinuated that it was wrong that Sen. Obama was “taking a 767 campaign plane to go visit Grandma.”

Saying goodbye to your dying grandmother is a waste of resources?

Family values, indeed.

In honor of Ms. Dunham, and in shame of Mr. Blakeman, a donation page has been set up on Sen. Barack Obama’s website. The idea is to donate $8.60, or any multiple of $8.60, in honor of Ms. Dunham’s 86th birthday (Oct. 26th).

I added my contribution. In less than 24 hours the contributions were already over $5000. Amazing what good people can do when they work together.

Senator Barack Obama is scheduled to make an appearance today (Tue. Oct 21) at Bicentennial Park in Miami. I have the day off work so I am so totally going to try to get over there. This will be my first political rally ever, so I’m not sure what to expect. But it should be interesting.

The Miami Herald reports that the Miami rally is set to cross times with the Miami Heat game at the AA Arena, so expect heavy traffic.

Do we ever not expect heavy traffic?

The rally at Bicentennial Park is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. while the Heat game starts at 7:30 p.m.

The crowd at Senator Obama’s Orlando rally was estimated at 50,000 people, the largest at a modern day Democratic campaign in Florida. The crowd expected for Bicentennial Park is 20,000 – 40,000 people.

Good times.

Bicentennial Park is on Biscayne Blvd, just seven blocks north of Bayside Marketplace.

The Herald reported long lines for the first day of voting, so go prepared: proper I.D., bottle of water, iPod, umbrella, list of who you are voting for in each category so that it doesn’t take you an hour to fill out the ballot.